Australia: The National Portrait Gallery has reopened in a new 14,000 sq metre building in Canberra, next door to the National Gallery. The project, which cost A$88m, provides the 20-year-old institution with a purpose-built space for its growing collections.
France: President Nicolas Sarkozy's economic recovery plan includes €100m for cultural infrastructure projects. The funds will speed up the development of major schemes such as the Museum of European and Mediterranean Cultures in Marseille.
Italy: The culture minister's suggestion that state museums and archaeological sites should be regarded as generators of revenue has caused uproar. The remarks coincide with the controversial appointment of the former head of McDonald's Italian subsidiary to head a new ministry directorate to develop museums and ancient sites. The arts have been hard hit by government cutbacks, with more than €1bn being slashed from the culture ministry's budget over the next three years.
Italy: A Museum of Oriental Art has opened in Turin. The €15m renovation of an 18th- century palazzo created 1,700 sq metres of galleries for the display of 1,500 works from south Asia, China, Japan, Himalayas and the Islamic world.
Libya: A British firm of architects, Metropolitan Workshop, has won the competition for a "museum of conflict" in Tripoli, with a design that is based on the image of a modern bedouin tent. The museum will open in 2011 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Libya's independence.
UAE: The United Arab Emirates will be the first
gulf state to have a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, as it seeks to cement its position in the international art world. Other countries participating in the 2009 event for the first time include Pakistan and South Africa.
Unesco: There are 70 entries on the inaugural Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. They range from the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico to ox herding traditions in Costa Rica. A further 112 applications are being considered for inclusion.
US: Billionaire philanthropist and contemporary-art collector Eli Broad has pledged $30m to save Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum has suffered an operating deficit for six of the past eight years. Broad's gift is conditional on finding match funding of at least 50 per cent from other donors.
Compiled by Magnus von Wistinghausen.
France: President Nicolas Sarkozy's economic recovery plan includes €100m for cultural infrastructure projects. The funds will speed up the development of major schemes such as the Museum of European and Mediterranean Cultures in Marseille.
Italy: The culture minister's suggestion that state museums and archaeological sites should be regarded as generators of revenue has caused uproar. The remarks coincide with the controversial appointment of the former head of McDonald's Italian subsidiary to head a new ministry directorate to develop museums and ancient sites. The arts have been hard hit by government cutbacks, with more than €1bn being slashed from the culture ministry's budget over the next three years.
Italy: A Museum of Oriental Art has opened in Turin. The €15m renovation of an 18th- century palazzo created 1,700 sq metres of galleries for the display of 1,500 works from south Asia, China, Japan, Himalayas and the Islamic world.
Libya: A British firm of architects, Metropolitan Workshop, has won the competition for a "museum of conflict" in Tripoli, with a design that is based on the image of a modern bedouin tent. The museum will open in 2011 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Libya's independence.
UAE: The United Arab Emirates will be the first
gulf state to have a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, as it seeks to cement its position in the international art world. Other countries participating in the 2009 event for the first time include Pakistan and South Africa.
Unesco: There are 70 entries on the inaugural Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. They range from the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico to ox herding traditions in Costa Rica. A further 112 applications are being considered for inclusion.
US: Billionaire philanthropist and contemporary-art collector Eli Broad has pledged $30m to save Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum has suffered an operating deficit for six of the past eight years. Broad's gift is conditional on finding match funding of at least 50 per cent from other donors.
Compiled by Magnus von Wistinghausen.
Links
Seen in artsjournal.com, The Art Newspaper and www.culture.gouv.fr
Seen in artsjournal.com, The Art Newspaper and www.culture.gouv.fr
